Abstract

The school short form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inv entory is a widely used measure of children’s global self-esteem. Unlike the full-length scale, howev er, it has been generally understood that the short form does not allow differentiation between the major indiv idual sources of self-esteem. The present study has examined the internal structure of the school short form by exploratory and confirmatory analysis on data prov ided by 3,056 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 years and has demonstrated that after the remov al of 6 redundant items, the newly rev ised scale not only possesses improv ed psychometric properties but also contains three clear factors that correspond to personal self-esteem and self-esteem deriv ed from parents and peers, respectiv ely. The presentation of a rev ised v ersion of the school short form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inv entory that is psychometrically robust and demonstrates three clear subscales will allow clearer distinctions to be made among the sources of children’s self-esteem in future studies.